About Me

When not nosing, tasting, drinking and reading about malt whisky, I own one of Israel's premiere boutique coaching practices, specializing in small businesses and executive teams.
Trained in the law, I was an international law attorney and took part in Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, as well as representing my country at the UN for parts of the negotiations on the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Later I was appointed to the military bench.
My favorite thing, other than whisky, is teaching.
You can contact me through the social media buttons above or by email: michael(at)maltandoak.com, replacing the (at) with an @.

Statement of Integrity and Guidelines

Malt and Oak is an independent whisky blog, offering my own views, opinions and news from the world of malt whisky.
These are my guidelines:

1. All whisky reviews published are of whiskies I have personally tasted and noted. Guest bloggers only write about their own personal tastings.

2. With the exception of official whisky samples, I accept no consideration whatsoever from any distillery, bottler, distributor, drink company or store for my opinions.

3. I maintain strict impartiality and objectivity in tasting all whiskies, not least when tasting official samples. Any review of official whisky samples sent to me will be so noted in the post.

4. I will accept invitations to tastings, events and official visits, and full disclosure will be made on any tasting notes and articles resulting from these events or visits.

5. Any sample received over 30 ml in volume is shared with fellow whisky bloggers. In any event, no sample larger than 100 ml will be accepted.

6. No advertisements promoting specific brands will be accepted.

7. I will answer any inquiry by my readers as quickly and as fully as possible.

8. Should I give a link purchase the reviewed whisky, it will be given free of any commercial interest. The link given will always point to cheapest selling price I found on the web. No commission is paid, nor any other consideration given, for such link.

9. As of July 2017, I serve as Douglas Laing’s Israel brand ambassasdor. As such, I will obviously not be posting reviews of Douglas Laing products.

Author Archive

Rewind to 2015 and the whisky world was hit with words “GlenDronach are discontinuing the 15yr Revival” (see our review here) Cue rampaging through the streets, cars being set on fire, statues being pulled down, and grown men & women sobbing like an infant who has dropped their ice cream on the pavement outside school…

This bottle appeared last week and was gone quicker than a Nicolas Cage or Vin Diesel movie. It’s a special bottling of the infamous year of 1993 to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Abbey Whisky. Those who are familiar with Abbey Whisky and Mike Sharples know that they have a 6th sense for sniffing out…

In the 7 months since I did the review for batch #14, a lot has happened in the world. A lot. Donald Trump is in the driving seat of the world’s biggest Super Power. Great Britain has its second ever female Prime Minister and is leading its exit from the EU, Star Wars Rogue One…

Malt and Oak is delighted to welcome Sean Russell, founder of the GlenDronach Appreciation Society, as a contributing editor to the blog! September 2016 saw the second of the years’ single cask batch release from GlenDronach. There appeared to be an even bigger craze in obtaining these batch #14 bottles faster than previous releases. The…